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Spring Jam Will Assist Animal Shelters

(LINTON) - Call it paws for a cause: Organizers hope the inaugural edition of Spring Jam, a Saturday show featuring eight area metal bands, will become an annual event and assist animal shelters.

"We're trying to make it that," said Mike Gerdts, No One Zero's singer and guitarist. "If it goes off, if it pops off like we hope it will, then we will do it every spring."

Mark Stalcup, of the Greene County Daily World, reports tickets to the all-ages show, from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday in the Roy Clark Community Building, will be $5. Costs for producing the show will be split between the eight bands performing: No 1 Zero, Thorr-Axe, Nail Driven, Demolition, Bionic Monks, Pragmatic, Tenstrip and Diesel.

Each of the acts will perform for one hour.

The show's line-up runs as follows:

Thorr-Axe, from Bloomfield, plays at 3 p.m.

Nail Driven, from Linton, plays at 4 p.m.

Demolition, from Linton, plays at 5 p.m.

Bionic Monks, from Columbus, Ind., plays at 6 p.m.

Pragmatic, from Indianapolis, plays at 7 p.m.

No One Zero, from Indianapolis, plays at 8 p.m.

Tenstrip, from Jasonville, plays at 9 p.m.

Diesel, from Bloomington, closes the show at 10 p.m.

Proceeds from concessions sold at the show by Jager Gerdts, the musician's daughter, will benefit no kill animal shelters such as those on the south side of Indianapolis, where Gerdts, a former Linton native, now resides.

Jager Gerdts is a member of Four Paws, an animal advocacy group which aims to help strays, at Center Grove Middle School.

Eventually, Gerdts, who thought up the spring festival, hopes it could bookend Linton's Music Festival, with the Spring Jam opening up summer while the Music Fest closes it down over Labor Day weekend.

Saturday's show began simply, with No One Zero planning an all-ages show to perform for fans it made duirng repeated appearances at the Music Festival.

"This is something we wanted to put together for our younger fans," Gerdts explained. "Basically, instead of playing the bar scene, because we'd played at the Music Fest we wanted to do an all-ages show, something that could draw in our younger fans."

From there, it snowballed as other music festival veterans and bands friendly with No One Zero signed on.

The show's planned for the community building "so weather won't be a factor," Gerdts said.

No One Zero, a trio, features two Linton natives -- Brandon Puckett on bass along with Gerdts on vocals and guitar -- along with Indianapolis resident Matt Holtsclaw on drums.

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